


The Roots of Education Are Bitter, But the Fruit Is Sweet

by xaviul



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, Drugs, Medical Procedures, Needles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 05:15:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16717181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xaviul/pseuds/xaviul
Summary: You can hear the snap of gloves, your only warning before ice-chill fingers land against your shoulder blade. She’s so cold that for a moment, you think her hands might be soothing against the ache of your body, but you don’t relax under the weight of her gaze. Her fingers draw in towards your spine, feeling like needles, before it pulls away. You release the breath you’re holding, and that’s when her hand returns.If her fingers had been needles, they’re a blade when they descend on your spine. You can’t help the way you jerk forward, your hiss dying in to a high chatter when it just makes the pain spread. “Careful,” she barks at you, and the desire to tell her to fuck off is only dulled by how tight your rib cage feels as you try to breathe through the pain. “What’s wrong with me?” Is all you can finally manage to get out as Vexscale’s chill vanishes from behind you. All you hear is the click of a drawer opening, and that trickle of unease from before has become a flood.The culmination of a lowblood's capture in to an Imperial Program- and the first steps towards creating a helm.





	The Roots of Education Are Bitter, But the Fruit Is Sweet

Pain had never been an unfamiliar concept to you. From the first moment you broke shell you were sure you had been experiencing pain, fighting amongst your cohort for the scarce resources that would allow you to pupate safely. The sweeps had only brought more pain, different kinds of pain for you to try and decipher, but what you were feeling now was… New.

You didn’t know what had caused it, and as you made the now-familiar walk to Vexscale’s lab you tried to puzzle out the origin. It wasn’t as if you’d done anything different, not that you could think of! The night before had been more of the same, a haze of lab results and Vexscale poking and prodding at you. It had ended when she had declared you were anemic and had forced you to take an iron supplement, watching as you choked it down as if she worried you’d spit it out without her supervision. Fair enough of a judgement though, since you would have. If she was so worried about the iron in your body, why did she have to always take so much of your chrome?

Then it had been classes, and exercising. Had you been feeling unwell then? Maybe not the most social, but looking back you’d felt fine. You hadn’t pushed yourself that hard, you’d eaten, and your sleep… Well. That was always shitty these nights, but the average amount of shittiness. Nothing you could think of could attest for this weird discomfort that had you moving so gingerly.

It had started in your gut, a weird cramping sensation that you had been happy to ignore. You’d thought it would pass, just like most issues did- your psionics would take care of things and fix your problems. But then it had spread to your back, a strange pulsing discomfort that spiked every time you moved wrong. You could feel it with every step as your weight shifted, dancing along your spine in a way that had your stomach dropping. What was wrong with you?

Even your neck felt stiff and tight when you moved it to look at the numbers on the doors you pass, a silent protest that had you gritting your teeth. You’d pulled muscles before, but it had never been such a deep and sharp pain like this was. It felt like it was soaking right down to your bones, chipping away to the marrow with every breath you took, every step you took. You raise your hand towards your neck, trailing it along the collar around your throat and back towards the pain-

“Dauths.”

You yank your hand back like a wriggler caught trying to sneak in to the cookie jar at the familiar bland voice behind you. Turning your head that far around felt like too impossible a task so you just paused mid-step until the click of heels on the tile drew close. Stygeo looked as she always did, save for the clipboard tucked against her chest and the coffee held in her hand. “Looks like we’re going the same way,” she tells you as she lifts the cup, and you hum as you start walking again. “Yay.”

It wasn’t that you were feeling any sort of anger at Stygeo. She was… As alright as any little drone around here could be, and she was never around for Vexscale’s time with you. At the beginning she’d been your escort out, but that had just lasted until you’d figured out your bearings. Ever since your interactions had been like this, brief meetings when you happen to be in the same place. But you were off-balance and snappish, unable to figure out the source of your discomfort.

One of Stygeo’s brows disappeared under the fringe of her bangs as she gave you a sidelong glance, her pace lengthening to try and keep up with you. “Someone got out of the wrong side of the recuperacoon,” she says dryly, just pointed enough that you feel a moment of hesitation over taking out your frustrations on her. “Sorry, long night,” you mumble, lifting a shoulder. Or trying to, at least, since your back twinges a warning that has you dropping it with a wince. A wince Stygeo notices, painted lips pulling in to a frown as she pulls in front of you.

“Are you alright, Dauths?” There’s actual concern in her voice, you think. “My back just hurts a bit,” you admit with a grimace. “Might have pulled a muscle, or something?” You almost miss the slight widening of her eyes, the way she shifts the clipboard closer to her. “Oh,” she says, and you start to get a trickle of unease before she suddenly relaxes. “Well, you do exercise quite a bit. Make sure to tell Proctor Vexscale, she may want to document it. If you will excuse me? I need to get this delivered.”

She speeds up to pass you by, only giving you a bare backwards glance before she rushes off. You don’t know what to make of the quick retreat, but you don’t really feel up to trying to match her. You keep at your slow pace instead, happy to keep dragging your feet for as long as you can get away with. The less time you spend with Vexscale, the better in your opinion. You don’t want her to think you’re getting too eager for her plans, you just need her comfortable enough to take this damn collar off of your neck.

By the time you arrive, you’re surprised that Stygeo is still in the lab. You hesitate to watch her set up at one of the desks, fingers flying across the keyboard of Vexscale’s husktop, but your proctor in question demands your attention when she sweeps in to the room. “There you are, Dauths,” she says, tone brisk with an edge of impatience. Her eyes are aglow with that look you’ve come to associate with her speaking to your sponsor, or another proctor, and it only grows when she looks you over.

“Stygeo told me you have been having discomfort. Shirt off, on to the table then.” You cut Stygeo a look but she doesn’t so much as lift her head to look at you. It’s weird, having her in the room with you, but when you don’t immediately jump to obey Vexscale tsks. “We don’t have all night, Dauths.” Right. Your pride was telling you that being seen shirtless wasn’t as bad as Stygeo seeing you getting shocked and then removing your shirt, so you unzip it to carefully pull it off.

Putting it on had been slightly uncomfortable, but removal was worse. You hissed out a breath as you slid it down your arm and in to a pile out of the way, deciding to use the step to get on to the table instead of your usual method of just hauling yourself on to the surface. As soon as you’re situated Vexscale is swooping in behind you, a pillar of cold that your senses immediately focus on. It was instinct, not wanting any highblood at your back, and Vexscale… Well. Nothing good has ever come out of a visit with her.

You can hear the snap of gloves, your only warning before ice-chill fingers land against your shoulder blade. She’s so cold that for a moment, you think her hands might be soothing against the ache of your body, but you don’t relax under the weight of her gaze. Her fingers draw in towards your spine, feeling like needles, before it pulls away. You release the breath you’re holding, and that’s when her hand returns.

If her fingers had been needles, they’re a blade when they descend on your spine. You can’t help the way you jerk forward, your hiss dying in to a high chatter when it just makes the pain spread. “Careful,” she barks at you, and the desire to tell her to fuck off is only dulled by how tight your rib cage feels as you try to breathe through the pain. “What’s wrong with me?” Is all you can finally manage to get out as Vexscale’s chill vanishes from behind you. All you hear is the click of a drawer opening, and that trickle of unease from before has become a flood.

You shift towards the edge of the table, already steeling yourself for the discomfort of landing when Vexscale returns. The steel of her hand wraps around your arm and for once, you fight against it blindly, trying to jerk away from her and towards the exit of the room. It hurts, but you know you need to get away, you need to run now.

“I should have known,” Vexscale says, so exasperated even as she pulls you close. The strength of the opposite end of the spectrum is against you, and it’s like a fly trying to escape the web of a spider as you try to pull away. You see the glint of a needle raised in her free hand, filled with something pale green, but you can’t free yourself before she plunges it in to your arm. You strain as the contents empty in to you, but she doesn’t budge except to pull the needle out, tossing it in to a biohazard bin with practiced ease.

“Stygeo, get Calmmind down here. Have him bring Charopos as well.” She sounded so calm despite how hard you were panicking, and only when you clawed at the hand keeping you captive did she turn her attention to you again. “Don’t fight it now, you’ll feel better when you wake up.” You snarl in response, words beyond you as you can feel your body growing more sluggish as your body circulated the drugs in to your system, propelled on by the rapid beating of your pumper.

As your fighting grew weaker, Vexscale finally let you go. You didn’t realize her arm was the only thing keeping you upright until it was gone, all your muscles turned to water as you toppled on to the cold metal of the exam table. You couldn’t even lift your head but your eyes were still open, watching Vexscale as she crossed in front of you, heading for the room you had been so careful to avoid during your time here: the surgery room.

The drugs were dragging you down, down, vision getting hazy as Stygeo finally rose from the desk. The familiar click of her heels sounded out in the room, and the last thing you saw as you slipped in to a drug-induced slumber was the look she gave you before she turned her back.

It was a look of resigned acceptance.

* * *

You were in the desert, but it wasn’t the humid sands of Hanhai. The air was bone-dry and still around you as you walked, the ground cracked and barren of all but the toughest of vegetation. The moons beat down upon you as you walked, across the bare skin of your shoulders and back as you marched through the torn lands of Jejunus.

What your destination was was clear, a massive column rising up in the distance. The heat of the ground distorted it in waves, some far-off mirage that you couldn’t stop yourself from heading for. You just knew in your pumper that something you needed was waiting there, waiting for you. So you forced yourself on and just hoped you wouldn’t boil under the unforgiving moons.

It was a silent trek, with no signs of life no matter how far you went. The scenery didn’t change at all, but the beacon in front of you grew larger and larger, giving you hope. The closer you got, the more it took form until you could identify the sprawl of limbs raising up towards the moons. No tree this large could have ever grown in the arid land you had hatched in to, but there it stood, flourishing.

You approached the base of it, the roots rising in uncoordinated waves across the surface before they dug deep in to the soil. The smallest branches of them were still thicker than your waist, but you clambered over them without complaint, drawn closer and closer to the trunk of it like a moth to a flame.

As you got close, a rustling in the trees made you look up just in time to see a flash of brown disappear in to the higher branches. You pause on top of one of the giant roots to scan for any further sign of movements, and as you looked up, just at the edge of your vision you saw her. The details were too hard to make out from this distance, but you didn’t need that to recognize the shape of your moirail, climbing up the branches.

“Sipara!” You call, suddenly aware of how dry your mouth is. Her name is more of a croak than anything, but somehow she still managed to hear you, pausing on a branch to wave. Or, no, she was gesturing for you to climb, to join her, a quick motion before she continued climbing. There was no way you could deny her, not this. So you carefully balanced along the root under you until you finally reached the beginning of the climb.

It was a rugged old tree, the bark marred and pitted with the decades it must have taken to grow so large. But it made good hand and foot holds, and after a few false starts you begin to climb. The bark digs in to the palms of your hands and any skin that crushes against it as you pull yourself up, struggling towards where you had last seen Sipara. The canopy of the tree was a blessing, shielding you from the moonlight, but that was the only relief you had as you climbed. The heat was inescapable, an oppressive blanket that had you sweating even before you had begun. Dehydration killed in the desert, but you had no water. Your only option was to keep going, so that’s what you did.

But climbing was tiring, and you could feel your muscles straining as you climbed higher and higher. The branches were your only option for a reprieve, and you worked towards that goal as your slippery palms skidded against the sandpaper bark. You couldn’t even wonder how you would manage to climb back down, you were too worried you might not make it up at all. But you were too high to think of dropping back down now, and then you’d be back at the beginning but even more tired than you had been the first time. Gritting your teeth, you persevered and rose higher until the branches were finally within reach.

The lowest were too thin to support you, weak enough that you didn’t dare even test them. But with more climbing, you finally reach a section that after carefully resting your weight against, you were sure would be safe. You sank on to one of them with a sigh of relief, working out your cramped hands and looking out around you. The world stretched out so far below, featureless and uniform brown earth as far as you could see. It felt like you were alone out here, the only living things yourself and the tree- and your moirail. You still needed to get to her, but you would rest first. At least now you were along the branches, where it would be easier.

You had just begun to relax when you hear a creak above you. “Aren’t you awfully high up, Blossomrot?” A voice rang out, and it made you jump despite yourself. It had been so silent before that the familiar voice felt as shocking as a gunshot. You scraped your horns back in to the bark as you searched for the source of the words, even as more came. “Why, it’s so dangerous up here. One little slip, and… Splat!” The overly saccharine words made you scowl, the voice bodiless. “I’m not going to fall,” you proclaim with more surety than you feel. “And if you’re going to threaten me, do it to my face. Or have you turned into a coward on me, ID? Feeling a little yellow bellied?”

A challenge is the best way to draw out the other troll, you think smugly. All you had to do was ruffle his feathers and he couldn’t just take it lying down. And just as you expected, after a moment of rustling, a pink blur landed from above- and you realize just how literal the ruffling was.

It was clearly ID, in a lot of ways. That was the same annoying chest that you always had to see with his sad excuse of a wardrobe, his messy curls and sweeping horns. It’s his boring handsome face looking at you, but it’s not quite so boring with a beak attached to it, the sharp hook of a bird of prey. Instead of arms, he had wings, held carefully above him in a show of bright fuschia, and his bottom half matched. From the waist down, it was a sea of feathers, ending in aquiline legs with talons sunk deep into the branch.

“Have you forgotten where my eyes are again?” He asked, and you marvel at how he’s able to speak with a beak. “You can’t just spend the whole night here if you’re going to reach my Siparaja.” “I’m tired,” you argue, but he hops closer to you and the weight of him makes the branch dance in a way that had you scooting closer to the trunk. “Oh come now, you’ve come so far! She’ll fry up there when the sun comes up. It’d be so much easier if you both just had wings, like me. You could just fly right up there!”

There’s something flat about his eyes as he says it, and when he hops closer again you finally stand to start climbing again. “I don’t need to fly,” you toss as casually as you can as you search out a new handhold to support you. “I like having both my feet on the ground.” At least he doesn’t follow you up the tree. He’s just watching you climb, wings raising higher. “How much good is that doing you right now, dearheart? It simply isn’t doing anything at all for Sipara!”

You focus on ignoring him, back to the grind of climbing. But when you’d finally climbed far enough away that ID was obfuscated by the branches, you can hear the snap of wings. When you look up to gauge the next branch to grab, you can see the pink of him from the corner of your eye- and then the dig of his beak as he soars in and pecks your back. The shock almost makes you lose your grip, and over the wind you can hear his laughter as he wheels away. “It’s encouragement, Hads!” He calls, and when he swoops in again you rush up into the higher branches, where they’re too thick for him to fly in to.

It’s a momentary respite, but the thick foliage thins again when you climb and ID is waiting for you again. It doesn’t hurt when his beak makes contact with you, though you feel like it should. No, in its wake there’s a weird pressure that lingers in your spine as you keep climbing. There’s no way to defend yourself from his beak, and when you give in and start to curse at him it only seems to encourage him to get more daring with his hits.

He strikes the back of your neck, and your forehead scrapes in to the bark as your feet slide across the branch you’re balance on. For one terrifying second, it’s only your arms keeping you from falling, your feet scrambling for purchase again before you can finally find it. “Leave me alone!” You scream at him, but he laughs again. “Nestlings need a push to learn how to fly!” He coos, and when he comes in again you risk freeing an arm to try and swat blindly at him. It’s probably only the shock of the action that makes him wheel away, but you take it- there’s another thick tangle of branches above you, and while he swings in for a new attempt you push yourself up, squeezing your shoulders past two twined branches and in to safety again.

But even as you curl yourself into the leaves, you know you can’t rest long. ID had a point about Sipara- when the moons sank and the sun replaced them, she wouldn’t be able to survive. You were so thirsty that every swallow just stuck your throat together, your lips chapped and bleeding with desire for a drink. Every muscle you had was stretched to its limits and all you wanted was a chance to recover. The pressure in your back was just growing, even without ID pecking at it, but you knew there was no escape. You needed to keep going.

So, with every muscle crying out in a chorus of distress, you picked yourself back up and you kept going. ID was easy to spot against the pale wood and green leaves, perched above, but as soon as you broke from the denser branches he took back to the air. Obviously, he had just been waiting for you to reappear so he could resume his torture. He had known you couldn’t quit now.

Your world narrowed to the next handhold you could find, the next branch, and ID’s unending attacks. The tree itself was starting to thin as you climbed, and the winds so high up were picking up, buffeting you against the trunk. It was a blessing and a curse, as ID had to struggle against it as well, but you’d just traded one torment for another. The wind was fickle, pushing you one way and then another. On the stronger gusts, all you could do was hunch against the tree and pray that it didn’t pry you loose completely, like a woofbeast trying to shake off fleas.

But as the tree thinned, the wind grew more of an influence, and you found it moving under your hands, groaning under the pressure. The moons were starting to get covered with clouds, the thick blanket dark with the promise of a storm. You were in Jejunus, you wailed silently, but as the wind picked up it was clear that nature was choosing to defy the natural order of things. The heavens opened up with a crack of lightning, and as the rain started to fall in fat droplets all you could think of was how you were currently climbing the only tall structure that you could see.

It added a new desperation to your movements, and as the rain started to penetrate the canopy the bark started to get slippery. You were thirsty enough to lick at the bark, opening your mouth for any stray droplets, but you could only seem to manage to get enough to whet your thirst instead of satisfying it. But still you climbed, past it all, determined to reach your moirail.

And then, suddenly, you were bursting through the canopy.

It was like a floor around you, the leaves slick with the rain but so thick. And more importantly, you could see Sipara near the edge of it, her back to you and her frame silhouetted against the storm clouds. You didn’t even test the canopy before you landed on it, almost collapsing. Your hands were knotted in to the position you had been using to climb, useless claws that you couldn’t get to straighten. Your steps were hobbled with your exhaustion, but still you set out towards her, croaking her name in a bare whisper. It was all you could manage.

ID landed to the side of you, one wing raised against the rain that kept dropping. He didn’t make any attempts to get close to either of you, but with your back still feeling the effects of his pecking, you didn’t trust him. You picked up your pace, but Sipara didn’t turn to you no matter how many times you tried to say her name.

Finally, as you approached her, she moved. It was her, just as you remembered her- ears pricked high as she took you in before she gave you a toothy smile that showed every carefully sharpened point of her fangs. “Took you long enough,” she complains as she opens her arms, and you stumble forward to embrace her. This was the comfort you had been wanting, the mild warmth of your moirail. You let yourself savor it for a moment, even though hunching to hug her made you hyper-aware of the pressure in your back.

But finally you remembered the climb down, and the moons hanging low. You pulled yourself away, but she clung to your arms to look up at you. “We need to get down before the sun rises,” you tell her, trying to put some urgency in to the creak of your voice. Sipara didn’t look concerned though, just leaning in to you with a chirp that made your pumper melt. “Oh, that. I got it taken care of. You trust me, right Hads?” She took a step back, guiding you after her as you frowned over the question.

“Of course I do, Sips. But the sun-” “Shoosh,” she cuts in, with a pat to your arm. “I got it.” She keeps stepping back, towards the edge of the canopy. The height is dizzying when you finally look down, how had you ever managed to climb this? How would you get down? If you hid in the thickest branches, maybe it would protect you from some of Jejunus’ harsh rays.

“All you need to get down,” she says brightly, as her grip tightens, “is a little push.”

The world slides around you- no. You’re falling, plummeting off the edge of the canopy as your moirail shoves you off. You try to scream as the wind starts to whip around you, twisting to try and see the ground as it rose to meet you-

And the world dissolved in to bright red feathers.

* * *

“…Amazing…”

“…A complete success…”

“…Sent to you…”

Your reawakening to the world is slow, awareness building in a soft layer that pulls you from the haze. You quickly come to wish it hadn’t- pain is the first sensation you feel, radiating from your back. You’re laid out on your stomach on what you think is a bed, cushioning soft under you, with an IV taped to one hand. As you try to stir, the machines whirr around you, beeping as you try to rise.

The pain from just trying to get your arms under you blindsided you, leaving you gasping for air as the conversation you had been hearing paused. Your eyes screw shut in the agony of it, but you know the feeling of Vexscale’s hand as it gently pushes you back down, arranging your limbs before she retreats. You can hear the beep of a machine, but even as you begin to panic lifting your head seems like too monumental a task.

Fortunately, as the machines click around you, the pain lessens. With it goes the sharp edge of your panic, leaving only the thought that you should be worried about something. What was it? It’s a new cloud over your mind, difficult to struggle against but you tried despite that. Where were you? How long had you been out?

It was the 27th day of the seventh perigee, something pings in your mind, alien enough that you freeze. Of the 760th Sweep of the current Empress, long may her reign be. It was the twentieth hour, thirty four minutes, twenty second seconds… Twenty three… Twenty four…

You recoiled, and the numbers flickered away. Logic was trying to rise, a tidal wave that would drag you down and crush you, but you clung to denial as your life preserver. There had to be some mistake. You were making things up, it was just the drugs. The drugs. Why were they drugging you, though? “What…” You manage to get out, and if it isn’t as much of a croak as your voice had been in your dream, it was close.

Vexscale hushed you, a sharp hiss that you couldn’t bother to concern yourself with as she pulls away. “Stygeo, watch over him while I deal with Carnifex. I need to finish giving him my report. If he goes in to distress, put him under. But don’t allow him to move until his body has finished repairing itself.”

If you had ever been good at one thing in your life, it was disobedience. It felt like you were trying to swim through jello, but you raised your head from the bed to actually look around the small room that you were being contained in. Vexscale was on her way out, looking a bit harried as she pulled out her phone- she didn’t give you a second glance as the door swung shut, leaving you alone. Well, alone with Stygeo, that is.

The other lowblood only waits a breath before she’s approaching your bedside, pausing only when she’s near you to pour a cup of water from a jug next to it. “Here,” she coaxes, bringing it to your lips. “Everyone’s always thirsty after surgery, you’re coming out of it. Drink slowly, now.” It’s humiliating, in some distant part of you, to have someone helping you drink. But the first gulp of water makes you aware of how dry your throat is, so you can only grasp her wrist as you drink as greedily as the tilt of her hand will allow you. The angle is awkward, laying on your stomach, but you don’t care about the water that spills down your chin.

The water helps you feel a little more aware, your body fighting to burn through the drugs. But whatever it was, it had to be dulling your spark- or it was just too focused on repairing your back to bother with anything else. Remembering the pain you’d first woken up to, you’re almost glad, but the sight of the IV in your hand jolts you back to all the questions you had wanted to ask before. “What happened?” You say, somewhat slurred but louder than you’d managed before as Stygeo turns away to set down the cup.

She keeps her back to you, a phantom image like from your dream. But her form isn’t Sipara’s, and the way her shoulders start to drop before she squares them isn’t like your moirail at all. “Your ports had developed, so Vexscale put you under to do the necessary emergence surgery,” she told you, like it should all make sense to you. All your mind manages to do is hang on to the one part of it you recognize, hands balling in to the sheets below you. “I don’t have ports,” you tell her, voice flat. “Nothing developed, stop joking.”

There’s pity in her eyes when she finally spins back to face you, but if it’s supposed to help soothe you it does anything but. “You were given an O-WORM egg the night before. It’s how most ports are installed here, all wetware. Liege Carnifex gave additions that Vexscale installed while you were already under, and- stop that.” The sharp rebuke came as you tried to reach a hand back to your neck, and she reached out to snatch it away before you could get a feel for anything but cotton.

It’s enough to let the panic cut through the haze though, but Stygeo keeps your wrist in the mild warmth of her hand as she continues, telling you the things you don’t want to hear. “You’re under maximum restrictions right now, to allow you time to adjust to the wetware. They’ll be lifted when Vexscale thinks you’re ready, it shouldn’t take you long. It’s a shock, but do you remember what I told you the first night we met?”

She barely pauses, as if recognizing that her earlier words were the last thing on your mind. You want to scream, but your throat feels paralyzed at the weight of her words even as she tries to soothe you. “It’s hard at first, but then you adjust. And then it’s all so simple. You’re in a good position right now, even if you’re being forced to catch up on all the things the rest of us have learned over the sweeps. You’ve done well on everything else, you’ve made Vexscale so pleased. She was talking about the ship Carnifex will be building for you while you finish your education while you were under. Being a warship is such an honor.”

She actually sounds jealous for a moment, and the way she looked at you wasn’t her usual tepidity. There was a fire for a moment in her eyes, but as soon as she realizes you’re watching it banks itself. “You should be thankful,” she adds, as if it’s all so simple. As if your planned destination is any balm to having your personhood ripped from you, as if what column they stuck you in was any different from another.

It’s just like ID had told you, that first night you’d gone to see him. ‘Can you picture that?’ His words float through your mind, real enough that you could almost believe he was bending across the bed to whisper them to you. ‘You just close your eyes one day, and wake up the next night to find out they put you under the knife?’ You had tried to picture it, and it had filled you with dread. How could you have known that anything your imagination could ever conjure up would always pale in the face of the reality of it? You couldn’t even call this a new life- this was a robbery of everything you were.

“Fuck that,” you finally whisper, and Stygeo leans closer to hear you. “Don’t be that way,” she chides, sharp again, but you don’t care about what she wants you to act like. If she wants to be a drone, fine- but not you.

You reach for the bandages at your neck with your free hand, trying to dig past the gauze. It hurts, but the drugs make it manageable as you try to rip at it, stopped only when Stygeo grabs that hand as well, forcing it away. You snarl at the confinement, as loud as you can, pouring all of your helpless rage at everything in to it as you start to thrash. One of the monitors around you have begun to scream, and Stygeo doesn’t seem to know what she’s doing for a moment before resolve forms on her face.

You feel the thrum of psionics in your horns, but you can’t avoid it as Stygeo’s telekinesis pins your body to the bed. All you can do is scream at her, wordless again as she pulls back and reaches for the machine attached to the IV in your hand. “I’m sorry,” she says, but there’s not a shred of sincerity in it as she watches you. “I pushed too hard. Some trolls just don’t take well to the medications. You’ll feel better about all of this when you’re discharged, and you start seeing all the new things you can do.”

She’s pressing buttons again, but there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re just as unable to stop this as you were everything else, and it’s that knowledge that saps the will to fight out of just as much as the new rush of drugs that enters your veins. Sleep seems like the only escape you have from reality now and you gladly throw yourself into its embrace, slipping back under again under the keen gaze of Stygeo as the room fades away.

This time, you don’t dream.


End file.
